An English Road Trip---Canterbury and Dover

Canterbury Cathedral
at night

Day #4-5 in UK, Day #18-19 traveling

I woke up early on Monday morning in Oxford to meet up with my best friend/big sister/probably the best roommate I'll ever have, Theresa!  She flew from Michigan to spend a bit of time with me as well as her older sister who's studying at Oxford.  They invited me to join them on a road trip to Canterbury, so I agreed.

Walking out of Lady Margaret Hall, Theresa started running up to me.  After a HUGE hug, she quietly announced SHE was driving us around England.  Apparently, since her sister and brother-in-law have lived in the UK for over a year, their American driver licenses aren't valid in England. Sooooo the day after landing in Europe, Theresa's zooming around England on the wrong (left) side of the road with ME in the back seat.  This is one of the travel details I usually avoid telling my mom until after the fact.  The trip involved Jacob (Theresa's brother in law) saying LEFT a lot, all of us actually said LEEEFT quite a bit.

Streets of Canterbury

When we arrived in Canterbury and found our hostel, I was feeling particularly sick.  I didn't get much sleep the night before and my coughing sounded like I smoke ten packs a day.  As much as I wanted to explore the city, I decided to be smart and take a long nap so I could not be sick for the rest of the trip.  It didn't work entirely well, but I woke up feeling a little better and jumped on Facebook to tell my mom I was safe in Canterbury.  That's when I read a few statuses lamenting Pope Benedict's resignation...which I didn't know was a resignation at the time.  I assumed the Pope had died!  Frantically, I jumped onto the Internet and found an article with a bit more information about the resignation and was quite relieved to say the least.  

The young boys wore
these strange outfits to
sing in...and we couldn't take
real pictures, so this is a sign.

The plan was to meet up with Theresa and company at the Canterbury Cathedral for Anglican evensong.  It was way different than the Anglican service I went to the night before, probably merely the difference between a student group and one of the most famous cathedrals in England.  There was an all-male choir that contained many adult men, but also 14 young boys who sang like angels.  I was thoroughly mesmerized by the music and had to conciously close my gaping jaw a few times!

Luckily, I had heard about the pope's resignation already.  Otherwise, four Catholics would have heard about the pope's resignation from a female Anglican priest...that would've been a story to tell!  After evensong, we went to a pub and grabbed some English cuisine.  I had a delicious hunk of lamb with veggies.  Then we went back to the hostel and drank some Moroccan wine and played Euchre!  Being in the company of Michiganders (even yoopers) was fantastic!

Altar place in the cathedral

I woke up the next morning feeling a lot better, but definitely not looking forward to our late night in the airport...Theresa and I had to leave Oxford at 2 am for a 6 am flight to Lisbon.   My complaints though are already well-documented in a blog post I wrote for The Apostolate.

We returned to the Canterbury Cathedral to visit the interior more thoroughly.   The Cathedral is where St. Thomas Becket was murdered in the 12th century.  The famous phrase of the King, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" supposedly rallied some faithful nights to ride to Canterbury and hack St. Thomas to death with their swords.  Before being appointed archbishop, St. Thomas was a good friend of the king, and (long story short) after being ordained, he found Christ and became a "good" man, not participating in the king's parties anymore.  It's really an interesting story and I suggest you read more here if you're so inclined.  

Big sister and meee!

After wrapping up our visit to the cathedral, we headed back to the car for a trip to Dover.  This part was a surprise to me, as I had just expected an overnight trip to Canterbury.  However, the White Cliffs of Dover were spectacular, even the part where Theresa tried to kill me.  Unfortunately, there is no photo evidence to prove me story, but I promise that she did!!  The White Cliffs of Dover are part of the English coast line, facing France.  It's the narrowest part of the English Channel, and thus where many attacks were started on the English kingdom and launched against opponents.  

It was really cold, so we walked down one path for a ways and then when the mud started getting super bad, returned to the visitors' center and then to Mary and Jacob's house in Oxford.  Before we got to the parking lot though, Theresa and I broke the "no horsing around" rule and climbed up a mini cliff so we can now say we literally climbed on the Cliffs of Dover!  

White Cliffs of Dover

Jacob made homemade pizza for dinner while Theresa and I "took naps."  That meant we talked...a lot.  After dinner though, we did the responsible thing and slept for about three hours before we had to catch our bus to the airport.  Per usual, I found a way to sleep on the bus AND at the airport.  My new suitcase made a fairly comfortable pillow.  Theresa found it hysterical and there's a picture of me floating around on Facebook somewhere.

And thus my time in England came to an end...and I ended up in my last country of this lengthy adventure, Portugal!